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Nissan has not lifted its annual guidance for 2017, bucking the trend among Japan’s three biggest carmarkers.

For the October to December quarter, the Japanese car group, which has a global alliance with Renault, saw its operating profit decline 15 per cent from a year earlier to Y163.5bn ($1.5bn) as the company grappled with rising incentives and sliding prices of used cars in the US.

The decline in profitability came even as sales from the Renault-Nissan Alliance were boosted last year by the addition of Mitsubishi Motors, taking the global partnership within a hair’s breadth of the world’s top three carmakers.

In total, the Alliance sold 9,961,347 vehicles in 2016, only 3,891 behind General Motors, which sold 9,965,238 cars in the year.

Joji Tagawa, Nissan’s corporate vice president, said the automaker did not raise its full-year forecast since the company did not revise its yen outlook downward like its two rivals.

Toyota and Honda boosted their profit targets as the yen fell sharply after Donald Trump won the US presidential election in November on hopes of US stimulus and tax cuts.

For the fiscal year ending in March 2017, the company kept its net profit forecast unchanged at Y525bn.